Wellness trends for the extreme (and extremely rich): From $10k-per-session IVs to frog venom

The big💃gest room in t🍨he world is the room for improvement, right?

And as biohacking techniques like cold showers and intermittent fasting go mainstream, New York City’s most dedicated wellness seekers are venturing into more extreme territory.

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Take, for instance, kambo — poison from Amazonian tree frogs that has become a favorite way for some in Silicon Vall🍒ey to d🐽etox both emotionally and physically.

A patient’s skin is singed to create a small wound where the kambo is applied.

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“It’s pretty wild — your face swells up like a frog and then you throw up, and you’re supposed to purge all the toxins that are in your body,” said Lauren Berlingeri, the co-founder of HigherDose, a New York-based wellness🐼 technology company that sells popular products for at-✨home use like red-light therapy masks and sa⛦una blankets.

Kambo treatments are known to give users diarrhea and heart palpitations, but fans claim that it can cure everything from anxiety to migraines if you’re willing to deal with some hours of pain.

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Berlingeri — who took part in a kambo ceremony and “20 minutes of flu-like purging” — said the most dedicated fans will travel to Peru where the most expert practitioners administer the treatment for around $150.

Then there’s ozone insufflation therapy — said to be a favorite of Gwyneth Paltrow, naturally — which blows ozone up the rectum with the promise of healing the gut and killing bacteria.

Getting the treatment professionally done at places like Next Health in NYC costs about $150 a session. But, for $1,850꧅ you can get an at-home starter kit from . Note that the FDA ꦛhas can be dangerous.

For those looking to slow aging, t☂otal plasma exchange (TPE) filters plasma to remove unhealthy particles — like autoantibodies that attack healthy cells — to reduce inflammation and strengthen immunity.

Multimillionaire venture capitalist turned controversial biohacker Bryan Johnson — who spends $2 million a year on “reverse aging” treatments including daily fat scans, more than 100 pills a day and a diet with 70 pounds of vegetable a month — recently announced he is a fan of TPE.

IVs in each arm remove, filter and replace your own 🍸plasma in sessions that start at $10,000 and take around four hours to complete. According to Berlingeri, biohacking experts recommend undergoing a series of six or more treatments before moving into anꦜnual maintenance treatments.

In other words, $60,000 will only get you to the baseline of whereဣ you should be, according to those who stand to make a fortune fᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚrom it.

Berlingeri said biohacking treatments like these are “really great things for when you are quite ill” — but she has also seen people cross a line.

“How far can you take it, right? How good can we feel? It can also be an addiction…” she said. “So there’s also the unhealthy side of being obsessed.”

Berlingeri adds that, often, it’s the simplest practices that are the most beneficial.

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“I prefer gentle daily detoxification… ” she said, referring to the infrared sauna at HigherDose. “You sweat, you detox, you feel amazing.”

But her best hack costs nothing — yet might be the most painful treatm𝓰ent of all for many people.

“After 6 p.m. I put my phone down … my device is very triggering.”

This story is part of NYNext, a new editorial series that highlights New York City innovation across industries, as well as the personalities leading the way.